Should, Ought to BY WWW.ECENGLISH.COM

For giving advice or expressing a conclusion 'should' and 'ought to'
are interchangeable. They are used to express the same ideas.You should/ought to stop smoking.He has been working on the project all week. He should/ought to be ready by this evening.Should is also used in hypothetical situations:Should anyone call, take a message. Call me should you need any help.Should is used with 'imagine', 'say' and 'think' to give a tentative opinion:I should think it will take us an hour to drive to Rome.

Need

'Need' expresses necessity:You need to exercise more often. You're putting on weight. You don't need to wear a tie if you don't want to.

Needn't have/Didn't need to

'Needn't have' is used to talk about an action that was done but was unnecessary.We needn't have rushed to the airport. The flight was delayed. I needn't have brought an umbrella. It didn't rain.‘Didn't need to' is used to talk about an action that wasn’t done because it was not necessary.I didn't need to call Mike. I met him in the street.

jueves, 23 de marzo de 2017

Using the Past Perfect

by www.perfect-english-grammar.com

When we arrived, the film had started (= first the film started, then we arrived).

We usually use the past perfect to make it clear which action happened
first. Maybe we are already talking about something in the past and we
want to mention something else that is further back in time. This is
often used to explain or give a reason for something in the past.

I'd eaten dinner so I wasn't hungry.

It had snowed in the night, so the bus didn't arrive.

If it's clear which action happened first (if we use the words 'before' or 'after', for example), the past perfect is optional.

The film started before we arrived / the film had started before we arrived.

2: Something that started in the past and continued up to another action
or time in the past. The past perfect tells us 'how long', just like
the present perfect, but this time the action continues up to a point in
the past rather than the present. Usually we use 'for + time'. We can
also use the past perfect continuous here, so we most often use the past
perfect simple with stative verbs.

When he graduated, he had been in London for six years. (= He
arrived in London six years before he graduated and lived there until he
graduated, or even longer.)

On the 20th of July, I'd worked here for three months.

3: To talk about unreal or imaginary things in the past. In the same way
that we use the past simple to talk about unreal or imaginary things in
the present, we use the past perfect (one step back in time) to talk
about unreal things in the past. This is common in the 3rd conditional and after ´WISH´.

martes, 14 de marzo de 2017

martes, 7 de marzo de 2017

Reported speech (1)

When we report someone’s words we can do it in two ways. We can use direct speech with quotation marks (“I work in a bank”), or we can use reported speech (He said he worked in a bank.)
In reported speech the tenses, word-order and pronouns may be different from those in the original sentence.Present simple and present continuous tenses

Direct speech: “I travel a lot in my job” Reported speech: He said that he travelled a lot in his job.

Direct speech: “They had already eaten when I arrived” Reported speech: He said they’d already eaten when he’d arrived.

The past perfect tense does not change in reported speech.
You can find more information about reported speech in another section.

Reported speech (2)

Remember that in reported speech we usually change the tense of the
direct statement. The present simple tense changes to the past simple,
the past simple changes to the past perfect and so on.
Here are some other points to consider.‘Can’ and ‘will’

Direct speech: “I can’t remember his name.” Reported speech: She said she couldn’t remember his name.

‘Can’ and ‘can’t’ in direct speech change to ‘could’ and ‘couldn’t’ in reported speech.

Direct speech: “I’ll be there for 3 weeks.” Reported speech: He told me he’d be there for 3 weeks.

‘Will’ and ‘won’t’ in direct speech change to ‘would’ and ‘wouldn’t’ in reported speech.Other modal verbs

Direct speech: “You could be right.” Reported speech: I said that he could be right.

Direct speech: “You must call me.” Reported speech: She said that I must call her.

Direct speech: “You should do more exercise.” Reported speech: He advised me to do more exercise.

Orders, request and advice can be reported using an infinitive.Reporting verbs
There are a number of verbs that we use to report statements. These can
make your speech and writing more interesting than simply reporting
every word of the direct speech.